BOSTON—The absence due to injury of Melky Cabrera didn’t matter on Friday. Neither did the added presence of Munenori Kawasaki as the Red Sox took their second straight game at Fenway Park, beating the Blue Jays 7-5 and dropping them a game under .500 for the first time in eight days.

Instead, the determining factors in the Jays’ loss were an elevated pitch count for labouring starter Josh Johnson — 90 pitches in 3.1 innings — and an overworked bullpen finally coughing up a run in the bottom of the seventh on a Jonny Gomes single vs. Brett Cecil, handing the loss to Neil Wagner. In the two games at Fenway, the Jays starters have combined for a paltry 4.2 innings.

“We got beat up in the rotation again, that makes it tough, Jays manager John Gibbons said. “The bullpen can’t be perfect every night. They’ve been pitching so well. But it starts with the starter. I think what makes it tough is we came back and tied it. But it’s never easy playing catch-up and that’s what we’ve had to do. That’s their style of game, they get after you and they play to win.”

The Jays had fought back gamely from a 5-0 deficit, finally tying the game in the seventh on a solo homer by Edwin Encarnacion, his 23rd, into the centre field bleachers off righty Andrew Bailey. But the bottom line was that for the second night in a row the Jays were in a huge hole early and Johnson, who had pitched five-plus in each of his last six starts, failed.

“I felt really good,” Johnson said. “They made me throw a lot of pitches, fouled pitches off, then hit all the mistakes I made. It was one of those frustrating outings where I should have got deeper. They made me throw a lot of pitches, ran up my pitch count.”

Kawasaki was no factor on Friday and don’t expect him to be on most nights. The shortstop, who is now turning his attention towards second base, had spent a mere 48 hours away from his Blue Jays teammates, but when he walked through the door of the Jays clubhouse at Fenway Park, the team and fan favourite couldn’t help himself. He yelled, “I’m ba-ack!” But this time around, other than his continued bubbly clubhouse presence, he will not be able to have the same impact.

Kawasaki, you’ll recall, was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday and recalled after Thursday’s game, replacing a hobbled Cabrera on the roster but not in the lineup. The man that will benefit the most with extra outfield playing time, at least to begin with, is the speedy Rajai Davis.

“We’ll give (Davis) a chance to play a lot more,” Gibbons said. “Raj has been swinging a little bit. Get him out there. He adds a different element to the team. He gets on base, he can run wild. We’ll see how that plays out and see if we get enough offence working it that way.”

In the sixth inning, trailing by a pair, Davis showed what he brings to the table. He singled to left, stole second and then went to third on a grounder by J.P. Arencibia, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Maicer Izturis to narrow the lead to one run. He had two hits and stole two bases.

Emilio Bonifacio is also a key piece to this puzzle while Cabrera is out with what an MRI confirmed on Thursday is tendinitis to his left knee. When Davis is in left field, Bonifacio, a switch-hitter, will play second base. When Davis sits, the former Marlins utility man will often play the outfield. Then there are the games vs. certain right-handers that Kawasaki will have his opportunities to play.

“Basically, we’ll just kind of rotate those guys depending on the matchups,” Gibbons said. “We want to get Rajai a chance for steady play and see what he can do for us. He’s been playing pretty good. I think that’s the right way to go right now.”

With the return of Jose Reyes to the lineup and with Cabrera on the DL, it might have been an opportunity for Gibbons to shuffle his lineup slightly and move Jose Bautista out of the two-hole in the batting order where the slugger had suggested to Sportsnet.com earlier in the week that he was not as comfortable as when he was batting third earlier in the year.

“I figured if he didn’t like it enough, he’d come to me,” Gibbons said. “He hasn’t said a word to me. He hasn’t been on a roll, but he’s still got some big hits.”

The indirect complaints are likely merely Bautista reacting in hindsight to his recent cold spell and blaming it on batting second. The manager said he had not thought of that move, happy with where they are. The Jays had moved Bautista to the two-hole and Encarnacion to three some 42 games ago, around the time the team began to get on a roll, fighting back towards mediocrity.

Batting second in the Jays’ order, Bautista has produced a .257 average with nine homers, 28 RBIs and an OPS of .807. Meanwhile, in what he prefers, the third spot, he has a .224 average, with seven homers, 17 RBIs and an .824 OPS. Bautista’s first game batting second was May 11, which, coincidentally, was at Fenway the day after Jon Lester one-hit them, dropping the Jays to a season-low 11 games under .500. They have two more games to try and even this series before leaving town. Much of the goodwill from the 11-game win streak is being forgotten.

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